The court also endorsed RCA’s further rejection of rate-setting methodology adopted by the eight companies that originally owned the system that operates 800-mile trans-Alaska oil pipeline. In its place, the RCA imposed its own depreciation-based rate-making formula.

The TAPS owners, now reduced to five companies through mergers and acquisitions, and the State of Alaska had appealed RCA Order 151 to the Alaska Superior Court in Anchorage in 2002.

Editor’s note: Watch for full story in the Jan. 22 issue of Petroleum News available online this coming Friday (noon) AND Friday morning at the Meet Alaska conference in Anchorage.